Evidence Gathered in Slayings

GOLDEN VALLEY, Ariz. — Investigators conducted tests Wednesday on bricks, rocks and knives found at a remote desert trailer where authorities allege a 14-year-old Lancaster girl and two adult companions killed a teenager, his mother and another man before fleeing to Illinois.

“We’ve discovered an awful lot of physical evidence,” said Lt. Rick Janssen of the Mohave County sheriff’s office. Deputies had collected the items during searches of the desolate, junk-strewn property, which has no electricity or running water.

The bodies of Roland Wear, 50, Leta B. Kagen, 37, and Kagen’s 15-year-old son, Robert Delahunt, were discovered Aug. 15 by Kagen’s husband in the trailer home, which is located about 15 miles west of Kingman, Ariz. Wear and Kagen were shot and Delahunt was stabbed.

Three days later, police arrested Frank Anderson, 48, of Lancaster in Anna, Ill.

Last Friday, police arrested Robert A. Poyson of Golden Valley and the teenage Lancaster girl at a homeless shelter in Evanston, Ill. after tracing a telephone call the girl made to a neighbor in the Antelope Valley. All three are being held in a Chicago-area jail. They may arrive in Kingman as early as next week to be arraigned on the charges in Mohave Superior Court.

The girl was charged Tuesday by Arizona authorities with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of Delahunt, whose badly decomposed body was discovered in a smaller travel trailer near his mother’s trailer home. The girl has also been charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the slayings of Wear and Kagen.

Prosecutors earlier this month filed three counts of first-degree murder each against Anderson and Poyson.

Janssen declined to elaborate on the evidence linking the girl to Delahunt’s death. “I believe that all three of them participated in one way, shape or form in these murders,” he said.

Janssen said Wear, who worked at a Laughlin, Nev., casino, lived with Kagen and her son at the trailer home. He said Kagen’s husband, Elliot, sometimes lived at the trailer home. Neighbors recalled how Delahunt had to walk four miles on a dusty washboard road to catch the bus to school. His teachers described him as a loner.

The girl’s father declared his daughter innocent during an interview Wednesday at the Lancaster auto repair shop where he works.

“My daughter couldn’t have done that,” said Cecil Lane, 34. “She’s too nice of a girl. This Frank [Anderson] guy led her into all of this.”

He said he has not talked to his daughter since her arrest.

Lane said his daughter met Anderson about four months ago when Anderson moved with his wife into the trailer park where Lane lived with his daughter and 12-year-old son. He said his daughter about two months ago began spending a lot of time at Anderson’s home. He said he believed she was playing cards with Anderson’s wife.

“I thought it was harmless,” he said.

But after his daughter disappeared July 30, Lane said friends told him she left town with Anderson to visit acquaintances in Arizona. Anderson’s wife, Dorothy, reported her husband missing on Aug. 3.

Neighbors described Anderson as a persuasive speaker who wore long-sleeved shirts in hot weather. He and his wife sold ice cream to neighborhood youngsters, who nicknamed him “the ice cream man,” said neighbors.

Judy Gibson, who heads the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Missing Persons Bureau, said authorities believe Anderson and the girl hitchhiked together to Arizona.

Mohave sheriff’s investigators say they do not know how Anderson and the girl ended up at the trailer home in Golden Valley. Janssen said he believes the pair had stayed at the house for several days before the killings. Poyson had lived there for a few months, he said.

Police have no motive for the triple slaying besides the theft of Wear’s late-model pickup truck, which was recovered when they arrested Anderson.

Tamaki reported from Arizona and Williams from Lancaster.